I have about 9100 miles on my 2007 VW GTI. It’s been exactly a year since my 5000 mile check up. Do I wait another 900 miles, or go now at the one year mark?
Everything is working fine, no oil leaks, no strange noises.
Thanks.
I suggest that you re-read the maintenance schedule that should be sitting in your glove compartment. Every listed service has both an odometer mileage value and an elapsed time value, and it is always stated as “Whichever comes first”. If you want to preserve the warranty coverage on your car, I would suggest that you take a few minutes to review the maintenance schedule and to be sure that you are in compliance with it.
If you decide to wait until things are making “strange noises”, it is usually much more expensive, time-consuming, and complex to resolve that situation than it would have been to perform preventive maintenance according to the specified schedule. No car ever suffered from being maintained better than the manufacturer specifies, but by contrast, most cars will suffer if not maintained at least as well as the manufacturer specifies.
The manual (and the VW website) gives only the mileage. They do say to change the brake fluid every 2 years regardless of mileage. That would be in December.
I wasn’t planning on waiting until the car made strange noises, I just wanted to toss that out in that it is not currently making noises and probably won’t in the next 900 miles.
Go for the extra 900 miles or Dec, whichever shows up first. Get the brake fluid changed while you get the 10K check up. Frankly, other than oil change, maybe air filter change, and tire rotation, I have some difficulty figuring out what a 10K check up consists of. The brake fluid change out at 2 yrs makes plenty of sense.
"The manual (and the VW website) gives only the mileage."
Really?
That is very short-sighted of VW, since the little old lady who rarely drives her car will be lulled into believing that she can change the oil every…5 years or so. Once the oil gels and destroys her engine, she will not be a happy camper. Of course, VW will not be on the hook, since the warranty will be long over, but that customer will likely not buy a VW again.
If you look at the service interval chart, you will see that there is a place for mileage at next service, and date of next service. If you took the GTI to the dealer for the 5K service, they should have filled in this section for you. Although the manual itself only lists the mileage, there should be some text in addition to the chart discussing some of this.